She nods as if she'd expected as much.
I take her in, still not sure if I'm in awe of her or worried. There’s blood on her shirt where she’s pressed it, quick and bright.
"You’re bleeding," it almost sounds like an accusation.
"Nothing new," she shoots back, but the edge is gone, and for a moment she falters. I see it—a flash of weariness, the way her knees want to fold. My hands go from inspection to catching without thinking: one on her elbow, one at her waist, the world narrowing to the muscles I can feel tense under my palms.
"Don’t you do that," I say low, the words a snapped wire. "You scared the—God, Oksana, you scared me to death."
She stares at me like I’ve said something riotous and tender at once. Then she plucks a hair from my head.
"Ouch."
She holds it up between thumb and forefinger like a trophy. "Oh look," she says, mouth half-serious. "You’re turning gray."
For a ridiculous, furious second, I consider pulling her over my lap. Then I see the way the cigarette smoke frames her face, the way the blood darkens the fabric at her hip, the way she is stubborn and furious and alive in a room of dead men, and I decide I’d rather kiss her into silence than try my luck.
I close the distance before my head can argue. My mouth finds hers the way a man finds dry land, hungry and desperate, like an apology and a promise braided together. She tastes of smoke and salt and something that makes my chest ache with the wrong sort of joy. Her body folds into mine for a beat, then she pushes hard into my shoulder like she’s testing that I’m still solid.
"You’re impossible," I tell her, breath thick.
"And you’re slow," she mutters, but her fingers find the back of my neck and tug me closer. I let her, because tonight I will take my small, human victories where I can find them.
My phone buzzes in my palm, unknown string, known weight.
I answer. "Arsenyev."
"You found her," he says. Not a question.
"She’s fine," I tell him, eyes on Oksana as she tips ash into a saucer, gun still loose in her other hand. "She’s alive."
Grigori laughs—low, winter-cold. "There was no doubt in my mind. I had the satellite rearranged and watched the heat sources die one by one."
I stare at the ceiling, biting back a sound. "You what?" The motherfucker knew the whole time. I swear, something inventive, something Catholic.
Oksana snickers, smoke curling like punctuation. "You could have told him, brat," she says, all sweet poison.
"You kidding me? He’s lucky he’s alive. He lost you." On the line, Grigori lets loose a string of curses that sound like broken glass poured into velvet. He says something in Russian that I don’t understand, and it makes Oksana’s mouth curve.
"I like him alive with all his parts," she says, pleased, and I roll my eyes because, of course, that’s the bar tonight.
Oksana leans her hip into the table and raises her voice toward the phone. "Anything new on the Cells in our midst?"
Grigori’s answer is a knife put back on the table without a sheath. "Nothing. Whoever they are, they know how to hide their tracks. They ghost their comms, swap IMEIs like shirts. I peel one layer, and there is another. It is inefficient." The last word is more dangerous than his curses. "But I shut down the Dachal. I'm expecting the survivors to talk soon."
It takes me only a moment to remember the Dachal, the still-operational training ground used by Voronin's Cells. Whoever was training the Cells knows who they are. This will be valuable information for the Pakhan and, maybe, for us.
I can hear him moving again, doors, keys, the architecture of a life that never sleeps.
"Good, keep us posted," Oksana looks paler than I like.
Before I can insist she hang up and let me take care of her, Grigori says, "And, Conti?—"
"I know," I reply, because I need to beat him to it at least once tonight. "If anything happens to her, I’ll wish I were dead."
"Mm." A sound that might be approval if he’d ever admit to the emotion. "Keep her where you can see her."
"I’ll try," I say, glancing at Oksana, the blood at her side, the cigarette's ember painting her mouth like a sin I keep choosing. "She bites."
